Not About Angels
by Tenshi Aburame
Summary: "I came to hold your hand." He felt her hand tighten his, and saw her breath deeply, swallowing the tears. "Even if it will take a long time, I'll be here, at your side. I'll care with you." "Thank you." Her voice came softly, softly, almost a breeze, and then she smiled to him.
1. My Destiny Coming To Pass

_Isn't my mother Language, so, if you find any mistakes, please, warn me ;)_

_No, it isn't a sequence of "Of Balls and Wreaths". Not yet. I'm planning that fanfiction better. But this one here, "Not About Angels"... Hell, it's just write and broke your hearts xD_

_Oh, thanks to my friend Camila Monteiro, she helped me with the tittle and is some kind of beta reader :D_

_Aaand Dragon Age, Cole and all the Dragon Age elements belongs to Bioware. The Inquisitor Nidhögg, Alessandra, Mary, the Hospital and everything of this another world is mine. In a way xD_

_I made the cover. It's "The Page of Swords", in a version agreeing with the fanfic and etc._

_Good Reading! I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

EDIT: LadyStoic read the chapter and correct a lot of mistakes and made some suggestions. I take mostly of them. Many thanks, really :) I'm making corrections on chapter 2 and 3 too (by myself, without cribbing corrections made by LadyStoic xD), and writing 4. When I finish the corrections, I pretend to have the 4 already written, just to be posted.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**My Destiny Coming to Pass**

"_Within these walls of devastation  
I'm passing through degeneration  
Confined in utter desolation  
In vile perpetuation I scream in desperation."_

_(My Destiny Coming to Pass – Sirenia)_

There was something different. A call in the air, but… Different. Oh, he recognized the feelings – _despair, loneliness, sadness, waiver, and pain, a lot of pain_ – but not the source nor the reasons. It was… Strange.

That day, he could not stop from walking through Skyhold, trying to figure out where the person spreading those feelings was, but it was difficult; the intensity stayed the same wherever he was, as if the feelings were only in his mind. But… No. He knew it. Someone needed help.

Almost everyone was already asleep when Cole decided to ask for help. Nidhögg Trevelyan was the only one awake, beside him; she was always awake when someone needed her. Like him, she always knew when someone needed her help, but no one, nor even him, knew how. She never talked about it. He had the feeling that was something the Anchor allowed and it had grown stronger after Corypheu's defeat.

He knocked on the door almost fearfully, even with the knowledge that the human on the other side wouldn't mind someone knocking so late.

The door opened with a soft creak, letting Cole see the young woman with the straight long hair, stained a luminous red that gradually became yellow and with blue tips that tapered off into white; it made him think of fire. Her eyes held the same color as the tips, with a spark of defiance; most people never looked her in the eyes. Cole had saw in their minds the reason: to them, the eyes held an air of danger as if she could kill them with a single move of her fingers, even if they didn't know she was a Mage or the Herald..

The dark-red tattoo covering her face in stark contrast with her pale skin, probably didn't make things easier; it was the skull of a dragon, empty scales lined in that dark-red covering the skin. Horns were tattooed on the sides of her scalp where the hair was shaved and dragon eyes transformed into her own eyes, surrounded by tiny scales. The mouth had long sharp teeth that opened when she opened her own mouth, since they were tattooed into her lips, black and white on a red canvas. It terrified most people.

"What happened?" she asked, letting him enter the room and closing the door at his back, before walking barefoot on the fuzzy carpet. When she reached her desk.,Niddhögg picked up a bottle of wine and her large silk sleeve slipped down her arm, revealing more scales lined in dark-red. He had never seen her naked, but that made him wonder if the dragon-like tattoos covered her entire body.

That must have hurt.

Cole sat down on the sofa, watching Nidhögg open the bottle and drink directtly from it. He sighed before starting to speak.

"Someone needs help, but… I can't find who. I don't even know who need help. The… calling… stays the same, wherever I am."

The Mage frowned, staring at him and her fingertips – tattooed with dragon claws that slowly became her own nails, as long and sharp as a real dragon claw – beat rhythmically on the glass. He knew that she was carefully thinking about what he had said, considering all the possibilities.

"You are a spirit. More human now, but a spirit. Perhaps… This call for help is coming from the Fade. Perhaps a Mage trapped by demons, or someone who fell into a rift I didn't close yet."

It was time for Cole to frown.

"But… If it is what you're saying… It's never happened before."

"There's a first time for everything, Cole." She said, shrugging. She put the bottle on the table before walking toward the sofa to sit at his side. "It's the only thing that seems possible to me." The Inquisitor breathed deeply. "You need to enter the Fade. Physically, not how Mages enter, using lyrium, but how we did in Adamant."

Cole blinked at her. The Fade… He shuddered, looking to the glass' Serault on her windows, breathing deeply, feeling like if he was trying to pass the glass and fly into the cold night above Skyhold. Enter the Fade again, now that he was more human… It was scary just to imagine.

Suddenly, a warm hand grabbed his and gave a light squeeze. He turned to face her, seeing a warm, gentle smile on Nidhögg lips.

"Don't worry. I will go with you and we'll find this person together." She left his hand goes, and then rose. "Just give me some time to prepare. We'll enter the Fade, after all…"

* * *

With Mary's help, the girl sat down, her back supported by the soft pillow, the only thing really comfortable in her room between bed, sofa and chair. The other nurse put a plate with a supermarket cake and a lit candle on her knees, carefully.

The needle in her arm caused a twinge with the movement; Alessandra bit her lip, putting the pain to the side and leaning forward so she could blow the candle out.

In the distance, she could barely hear the news coming from the TV in the next room; some scientists in Sweden had opened a gate to another dimension, they claimed; they also had claimed that the mineral samples they brought back were totally unknown. That was the moment news. Everyone was talking about it. She felt like she should do it, too, after all her parents were some of these scientists.

But the only thing in her mind, as she blew the candles out, was to have someone, a real friend, to help her in those final months of treatment. No, not really help, but to be with her; someone who cared about her and what would become of her.

And then the candle was cleared, and the two nurses, with apologetic smiles for not being her stupid parents whom already considered her dead, cut the small chocolate cake. They gave her one slice before leaving the room with the cake to give the rest out to other patients who could eat a little.

Swallowing back the tears in her light-brown eyes that begged to run down her haggard and pale face, Alessandra ate the cake, bit by bit, and forced the sweet and dry morsel down her throat until it reached her queasy stomach. She wished that the nurses had remembered to put more water in the mezzanine's jar before leaving the room.

* * *

The Fade wasn't the answer. The thoughts were louder, yes, but it wasn't there.

They walked around the Fade, sometimes fighting Demons, sometimes finding spirits, but found no other _real person_ besides them. The calling was louder than in Thedas, but like there, it didn't change as they moved.

After some time, Cole and Nidhögg sat on a soft green-glowing rock, looking at the strange sky of the Fade. He wanted to leave soon; it felt wrong being there when he was so human.

Suddenly, the Inquisitor rose and looked around before putting the eyes on him.

"Take my hand. I have an idea." She extended a hand to him; Cole looked at it, a sigh rushing out of his mouth, but he rose anyway and grabbed the hand. "You can feel the callin? I want you to focus your entire mind on them, let them fill you. Literally. Understood?"

"Yes." The glow of Nidhögg prevented him from truly knowing her plan, but he trusted her; he closed his eyes, tightening his grip on her hand, and put his own thoughts away to let the loneliness and the pain fill him. The whole thing was giving despair in Cole, but he managed to keep this away too. Despair wasn't something the person was feeling that moment.

"Now I want you _to feel from whom they are coming from and let that guide you_." He heard the Inquisitor's voice, and frowned.

"But I can't say who it is."

"Not say, _feel_. Feel all the singularities in them. Even if two people are feeling pain because of the same thing, there is a difference between them, because the people are different. Have you forgotten that? You taught me that." Anger and exasperation in her voice. He could not blame her.

Breathing deeply, Cole let his mind navigate through those feelings, let them guide him by the unique things in them that separated them from another person.

And then he felt the Fade began to spin around them like a whirlwind, wild and almost out of control, all pure energy. He knew that Nidhögg was opening a rift; to where, Cole hadn't any idea. Suddenly, the Inquisitor pulled him with her, and he felt as if a part of him wanted to stay in the Fade, before he felt a strange breeze carrying the smoke's smell and the Fade vanished behind him.

* * *

The place was strange, so strange…. Cole felt despair behind the glow of Nidhögg's mind before her hand tightened his with enough strength to make his bones ache. Her reaction worried him; it didn't seemed like the Inquisitor.

He noticed her looking around, then to him, and her boiling-blue eyes were filled with fear.

"I… Can't felt the Fade. Not the way I felt it before… The energy is more… Distant."

He could understand. If he had struggled to see through her mind before, it was even more difficult to read her now. But before she told about her difficult in felt and touch the Fade, Cole hadn't think that that difficult was for being distant from it.

The rift was already closed behind them. Around the couple lay sad grey buildings, covered with stained drawings, and trash, lots of it, was covering the ground.

A dead beggar lay in the alley, the body cold and being gnawed by rats, rats so big they appeared to be giant nugs. Beyond Nidhögg and Cole, these rats and some insects appeared to be the only living things there.

It was difficult to hear not only Nidhögg's mind, but all the other minds around the place seemed dipped in mist, the thoughts and feelings running from him. He needed to put more effort into capturing them.

Yet, the one who had called him and guided them was louder, almost shutting out the other minds. The difference was a bit frustrating.

Now he could say it was the mind of a girl that was screaming for help, and in that exact moment it was filled with physical pain. He felt the physical pain push the mental pain to the deepest recesses of her mind. That pain… Cole wanted to scream as if was feeling it: _agonizing, maddening, mind-blowing, stealing sleep from me. No food today, please, I won't be able to keep it in my stomach. Don't make me eat. I know I need to, but I can't._

"Can you still hear the mind that brought us here?" Nidhögg's voice dragged him out of the pain; it was one of the worst he'd ever felt. Nodding softly, he pulled her hand and guided them, letting the thoughts and the pain take him through the dirty streets, but not diving in it; not yet. Now, he needed to be conscious so he could find her.

They passed some strange people, who were either walking around or just lying on the ground. Their clothes were as strange as the world, dirty and torn, and their faces talked of fatigue and vices, not seeming to see them walking between them. Cole picked up some glimpses of their minds, besides the mist and the feeling of absence around them, and what he saw reminded him of the way Templars felt due to lyrium. Whatever did this to them, didn't sing to their mind like the lyrium did with the Templars.

Cole stopped in front of a very tall but dirty light-blue building, its top. It must have been at least ten floors, and its top was surrounded by a dark and clouded sky with just a soft moon's gloom beginning to appear through the clouds. At the top, Samaritan Hospital glowed with a burst sun at the side where some rays lighted off. For a moment, Cole tried to figure out what "Samaritan" meant.

"It's coming from here. This… Hospital." Eyebrows lowered when Cole felt the different kinds of pain spreading from the building. So much pain. Some of them similar to the pain that had called him, he could say this even with the mist. The lad turned to the Inquisitor, letting her hand go. "Return to Skyhold, Nidhögg. I… I will stay. And help."

She pursed her lips, unsatisfied and worried about him; he felt thankful for her worry.

"Varric will go crazy if you don't return with me." Cole nodded in agreement, lowering his head a bit, and the hat dove his blue-iced eyes in shadows. Then, he removed the dagger's sheath from his body and gave it to the Inquisitor. She opened her mouth to say "no", but he didn't let her.

"I still have my throwing knifes. And…" he looked again to the Hospital. "These daggers will make things difficult. They'll draw attention." He turned his face to her. "Take care of them, will you?"

And then she breathed, giving up on trying to convince him. With a hand on her waist, she put the sheath on her shoulder, and then slowly nodded.

"I'll be back in two days, to see if everything's ok. Please, don't leave this Hospital. I'll turn this place on ashes if I have to."

She waited until Cole agreed; then, Nidhögg hugged him quickly and turned back, walking to where they had landed in that strange world.

* * *

Cole faced the Hospital. The front doors had a sign written "Emergency" on them, and strange white vehicles, with "Ambulance" printed on their sides stopped all the time to drop off physically hurt people.

Some steps away from the Emergency doors was another one signed as "Reception"; from it, mentally hurt people were coming in and out.

Shuffling his feet, Cole walked to the Reception; some people looked at him, but never really saw him. It wasn't like he was doing anything to not be noticed, they were simply deeply lost in their own pains…. _Loved ones dying; loved ones already dead. Doctors with no good news._

Breathing deeply to focus his mind, he put that pains aside for now; with no details, he would just make it worse.

Cole entered in a sterile room; some people were sat uncomfortably, reading and waiting. Behind a balcony, a woman dressed in a white shirt and pants waved to him, a graceful smile on her face. She reminded him of Josephine, in a way.

With small steps, Cole approached, hands in pants pockets and looking a bit confused at the woman.

"Are you a volunteer? Came to tell stories to the kids?" she asked, fingers intertwine on the balcony.

Tell stories to the kids. He could hear their mind, bored and full of pain and loneliness. The calling wasn't coming from them, but… He could and he would help.

"Yes. But I… I've never been here before." The woman's smile grew.

"They'll love you." She stopped to look around carefully. "I shouldn't let you in so late, past visiting hours, but it's been such a long time since they had a distraction. And you seem like a cool guy; one that will pretend to be a storyteller from a magical kingdom." That was the reason no one stared at his clothes; they had just assumed he was there to entertain the kids.

Cole liked the woman. Dalila, he saw from her mind. He could see glimpses of her life, and they showed a woman who liked to hold the hands of the elderly in her free time, letting them know that even if their children and grandchildren didn't care about them anymore, she cared. Someone that liked to help.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." Her voice lowered when she took a strange piece of hard colored paper and held a strange tool in her hands. Pen. It was a pen, he picked from her mind; used to write. "What's your name?" Before her hand covered the paper Cole saw the word "Volunteer" written.

"I'm Cole." She was breaking the rules, he saw, and depending on who met him on the highest floors, she would be in a lot of trouble. He lowered the voice too, and she smiled.

"It's a beautiful name, Cole." She said, writing his name on the paper; she rose and stuck it to his coat. "All right. You take the elevator" she pointed to a couple of metal doors with a button on the wall. "and go the 9th floor. From there, just follow the signs written 'Children Sector'."

Coled thanked the woman, and with the help of glimpses from the minds around him, he entered the large box called 'elevator' and managed to make it work without drawing attention to himself.

It surprised him; it didn't seem to move at all, but few seconds later, the doors opened into another hall, where people in white coats and carrying clipboards like Josie walked between rooms and corridors.

A sign, like Dalila had said, pointed to the right "Children Sector".

But the calling was coming from the left.

No one noticed him walking through the corridors, searching for the girl who had leaded him there.

It was the last room. A woman – a nurse, he picked up from her thoughts – was leaving it. She carried a tray full of small strange cups with names written on them and pills inside. She nodded to him, serious and not really seeing him, and entered in another room.

Looking around, Cole opened the door and snuck into the room the nurse had just left. The thoughts, the call for help, were slowing down, the physical pain being transformed into a distant memory as a wrong and artificial sleep spread through the girl's mind. That was the only way to make her sleep that day.

He drew closer to the high bed, without lightning the thing called lamp he had saw in the minds around, just the light from the street cutting through the darkness of the room.

He could barely see the girl lying in the bed, eyes closed and a needle breaking the skin in her arm. It had some kind of tube bonded to it, leading to a bag full of cloudy liquid that was apparently penetrating her veins. From the last conscious thoughts of her mind, he knew that it was a poor attempt to take the pain away, but that it didn't work as well anymore.

Carefully, he grabbed her hand and tightened softly.

He could not do anything for her in that moment.

But the children still needed and wanted a story.

Nidhögg fighting the Envy Demon… That was a good story.


	2. Boulevard of Broken Dreams

EDIT: LadyStoic read the chapter and correct a lot of mistakes and made some suggestions. I take mostly of them. Many thanks, really :) I'm making corrections on chapter 3 too (by myself, without cribbing corrections made by LadyStoic xD), and writing 4. I know that on the 1, I said I would post the corrections once I had chapter 4 write, but university is taking a lot of my time, so, really sorry.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**Boulevard of Broken Dreams**

_"My shadow's the only one that walks beside me  
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
'Till then I walk alone"_

_(Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day)_

"What happened?!" Cole smirked, amazed by the kids reactions. In the beginning it was a bit difficult to tell them how Nidhögg faced the demon and how he had helped, but the spirit went through with it anyway.

The youngest, a five-year-old girl with black circles around beautiful grass-green eyes, had jumped to the oldests' bed when Cole started the history, hugging and hiding her face in his neck every time the Inquisitor met the demon face to face. She gave little cheerful screams and laughs whenever Cole was in the scene, telling Nidhögg how to win and later told him that she wanted to sit on Bull's shoulders while he ran around when she found out about his massive height. The spirit laughed, remembering that he and Dorian and even Cassandra had been tormenting Nidhögg and Blackwall to bring some kids into Skyhold to call them uncles and aunt, children that would hang on Bull's horns. That girl, the youngest, Lily, would love the kossith.

Her reactions make the task easier; helped him to know what parts he should leave out, and what should be told. He didn't talk about the blood and how Nidhögg was slowing giving up to despair, before he showed her how to win. But he talked, with soft tones, about the way she lead the Templars and without destroying what they meant.

"And then Nidhögg defeated the Envy demon. The feeling of envy, however, was still with her. She always fought against it, being a mage and a magnet to demons, but never let it overcome her. The Templars become her allies, allies of the Inquisition, and it was a new start to the order."

"And Ser Barris?" Doug, the eleven-year-old boy, asked, at the same time trying to convince Lily back to her bed. Cole smiled softly, remembering how the Knight-Commander had come one day to him, _him_, asking Josephine's favorite flower, hands twisting nervously.

"Some months later, Nidhögg and Cullen promoted him to Knight-Commander of the Templar. Aaand he was trying to find a way to admit his feelings for Josie last time I saw him." Julia and Samantha, two of the oldest girls, sighed at this part. Cole added it especially for them, smirking at their reaction.

And _that_ made him remember that someone needed to help Josie and Ser Barris. He would remind the Inquisitor about this when she came back. She would think tn something he didn't that would, finally, make them fine one another.

_I will never do something that went against what I believe and what is right, even if I need to face someone more powerful. _A corner of Cole's mouth pulled into a smile when he took in the thoughts projected by the children's minds. Good. They had picked the essence.

"I think that all of you have had enough stories for one day." A voice claimed their attention. It was the same nurse Cole had seen leaving the girl's room earlier. She was smiling sweetly. "Lily, go back to your bed and for at least one day, let Doug sleep alone." The little girl furrowed her mouth, personifying a bad mood as she jumped to her own bed.

Cole rose from the bed. Some kids managed to yawn and ask for more stories about Nidhögg at the same time.

The nurse feigned anger, hoping that the children would listen to her; Cole could feel happiness spreading from her mind as it came softly through the mist.

_Kids laughing. Kids asking one more story. Kids… Happy. Jesus Christ, how long has it been since I've seen this?_

Cole smiled, and promised another story about Nidhögg next tomorrow night before sneaking out of the Children Sector.

* * *

Midnight came and went while Cole watched the girl, as he perched on the sofa. The thing was made of some noisy material, making strange and loud sounds when he moved. Even knowing that the medicine would keep her asleep for a long time, he tried not to move so much.

Every hour, a nurse would enter the room and observe the strange machines making _bips_ constantly. Just then he noticed wires coming from under the sheet covering her, leading to those machines. He watched as the nurse took notes before leaving.

The first one was the nurse from the Children's Sector. She smiled softly to him, and he saw a glimpse of her.

_Her friend? God knows she needs one… If he makes her laugh again, I swear, I'll climb up the Christ the Redeemer's stairs on my knees. _Before the thought melted in the air, he deciphered a word, "Brazil". What that was, however, he hadn't any idea.

The others nurses just looked at him, their minds suspicious, but, otherwise, blank.

One hour after midnight, her breathing became faster, her body started to move, her head turning with violent movements. He grew worried, jumping to his feet while the nightmare coming from her mind turned cleared in his own mind.

_Cutting me alive. Smashing my brain. Inside to outside. Guts not contained by skin. Belly waving, something growing inside me, eating me, devouring me. A rusty knife opening me from the inside, and... and..._

She was almost screaming, not only in the nightmare, loud enough to wake up the entire floor, all the others sufferers. More pain would be caused.

Faster than ever, he was beside the bed, and he wished he was like Solas. Nightmares were always one of the worst to calm down.

Cole held her hand, and she squeezed it deathly tight, still locked in her mind. With his mouth close to her ear, he started to whisper.

_And a crying babe is taken by the Healer. A baby with my eyes._ He didn't know her eyes color, but it seemed ideal. _A boy. The Healer gives him to me, and I cry of happiness._

Subtly, her hand released his. Her breath slowed down and her body was still once more.

Cole let a sigh of relief escape. The suggestion had worked, like never before; it wasn't a thing like a demon ripping its way out of her, a thing that her mind was calling "Alien", but a baby.

Smiling, happy that he had helped her sleep, he returned to the sofa.

* * *

He was in that strange world for less than a day and hadn't left the hospital, and, yet, he already understood some things. The buildings, the clothes, the technology, the politics, were all different from Thedas, but the people and their pains… Oh, these were the same.

The girl that had called to him had slept for something around ten hours. A strange, wrong sleep, like when the surgeon at Skyhold gave something to the wounded when there was nothing more she could do. It was the alternative to dying in pain. Even with the medication, he felt the waves of pain in her mind, mixed with the scenes of a sadly childhood and… a thing that her mind called "Terror Movies", whatever that was.

If he was right, it would take something like two hours to breaking down, and she was already awake. The medicine wasn't enough to elicit a really good night's sleep.

During the night, one of the nurses had exchanged the bag with cloudy liquid. Whatever was entering her veins, was meant to take away the pain. He knew it didn't work as well as should: the pain, the hurt, was still there. While her light-brown eyes looked in confusion at him, her thin chest rising and lowering too fast, Cole could almost feel how tiring it had been to sit in the bed without help, how the breath wanted to fail, how the air entering her lungs almost wasn't enough…

He stepped forward, approaching the bed. Her eyes followed him. With the little light from the street entering through the window, he could see how her pale skin was hairless. No eyebrow, no cilia, no hair… He could see, too, dark circles around her eyes, sunken cheeks and lips without color and peeling. The strange white cloth she used allowed him to visualize clavicles very prominent and arms too thin to be healthy. Cole suspected that he could count her ribs with no effort if her torso were naked. Earlier, he hadn't observed her in these little details so carefully.

"Who are you?" she asked suddenly; Cole didn't answer. He was too busy walking a step closer and listening to her mind, screaming and screaming in a way he doubted she would do with her own voice.

"Why no call from mom and dadl? A birthday cake bought, no birthday song sing, just the nurses as company. Alone. Totally alone. Few hopes to survive another year, dead to them since the doctor gave his diagnosis. Please, please, someone care for what will become of me, someone care about me, just until death finally comes." He stopped and blinked, a little surprised, ignoring the way the girl seemed to be at the point of crying at his words.

Cole couldn't understand everything he saw and heard, but he picked up the important pieces: the girl was sick. Physicians in her world were doing everything they knew to heal, but with little success, just like some of the kids he had known. Two years fighting against the cold fingers of death, and she was giving up. Death didn't scare her anymore; it was just a part of the life. But the pain that the medications were becoming unable to stop or at least decrease was an irritating thing.

And no one, not even her parents, it seemed, would care if she died. That scared her and worsened the pain, the thought that she would leave the world totally alone, with no one to at least hold her hand when her soul finally abandoned her body. No one would miss her if she died, it was what she felt.

Cole sat in the bed. It was an uncomfortable thing; a straw bed would be better, he thought to himself. He looked into her light-brown eyes, just now noticing the tears flooding them, and took one of her small hands, feeling the phalanges under the skin. So thin… That was a cruel and degraded disease; he knew, just by suggestion of her legs against the bed sheet, that the limbs weren't capable of sustaining her.

"I came to hold your hand." He felt her hand tighten in his, and saw her breath deeply, swallowing the tears. "Even if it will take a long time, I'll be here, at your side. I'll care for you."

"Thank you." Her voice came softly, softly, almost a breeze, and then she smiled to him. A single tear rolled down her face, and he extended his other hand to dry it.

"Don't cry, please. I didn't want to hurt you with my words. Sorry, really. I never say the right thing."

"You didn't." she answered, settling better against the pillow after making a gesture with her hand, insinuating that he hadn't said the wrong thing, and gave a smirk. Relief came from her mind when she felt the pillow's softness. "Do you have a name, Angel?"

Cole's eyebrow lowered with confusion. _Angel? _What _was_ an angel? He hadn't heard of this. Not yet.

"My name is Cole. What is an angel?"

_He doesn't know what "angel" is… So, he isn't just a figment of my imagination. Probably. Who is he? _The spirit heard her mind, while his eyes were concentrating on her facial expression. Her mind agreed with her face: he could see a bit of relief and curiosity in her eyes. She was sincere, a raw sincerity he hadn't seen too much in the world. Too many masks, just like Orlais. The children were an exception.

"An 'angel' is a being made of light and strength, creations of God, His messengers and soldiers. They can heal anything, assume forms of anyone, animal or human, and do practically anything that is necessary to help whom God wants to be helped. They also fight against demons and the Devil, the most brilliant and beautiful of them all that fell from grace millenniums ago and king of demons, if it's what God orders them. Most people today think they're just myth, but not me."

Cole heard the explanation and thought these 'angels' like if all the spirits of virtues were in a single being. 'God' seemed another name to 'Maker', even if that 'God' was, apparently, more present. And the demons in this new world had a leader to be pointed, that seemed a little with Magisters who invaded the Golden City. Yet, by what she had said, he couldn't be sure; apparently, they were invisible. It was a question of faith. It was difficult to imagine this kind of thing; in Thedas, the Maker was a question of belief, but the demons, spirits and even Andraste no. There… Everything depended on faith.

He saw some kind of hope in her eyes, and gave a small smile, tightening her hand.

"I'm a spirit. I can't heal, nor assume other forms. But I do whatever I can to help who is in need, without needing orders to do so… And I fight demons where I come from." He remembered Nidhögg and her capacity to heal with magic, the way she glowed because of the Anchor and how she always helped, if it was in her power. "But Nidhögg… Well, she can heal with magic. She's really strong, and would never let a demon control her. Always helps if she can. Fights demons too. And she glows."

The thoughts in the girls mind – _Alessandra_, he saw her name, and thought that was a pretty name – were of curiosity in a way that reminded him of the child he had told of Nidhögg's adventures as Inquisitor, mostly Lily and the girl's anxiety for more. Cole knew what Alessandra would ask before she talked.

"Tell me about her. And tell me about your fights against demons."

He smiled at her, feeling how that, just like with these children, would help keep her mind away from the pain and the painful thoughts about the lack of love of her parents.


End file.
